#729 A Little Tenderness

Dear Jeanne,Today I ask for a message of guidance for all of your readers. What is most meaningful and important for us on this day, as we begin a new week?

Tenderness is not a virtue left to but a few to utilize but a known quality within all human beings that must now be brought forth into everyday activities, interactions, and decisions, applied as a given, so to speak.

Please elaborate on this idea.

I speak of tenderness as a heart-centered emotion often reserved for only the closest of acquaintances or possibly only for one or two people in a lifetime. Mothers tend toward tenderness while others eschew it for more pronounced emotions. Today I speak not only of maternal tenderness but of the tenderness that lies within the self and is often bypassed because it exudes too much in the emotional realm.

I contend that in the world you live in a little tenderness for the self and others is most appropriate. It is also largely lacking and thus its need is great.

Explain what you mean by tenderness and how to go about accessing it.

I interpret tenderness as a quiet need, but I also know that a quiet approach to its awakening must be granted, for now it sits within the greater body of humanity like a scared animal, uncertain of its fate, for it has for far too long been relegated to darkness. This human quality of tenderness is not meant to be pushed aside though that has been its demise.

I do not advocate awakening raw emotional responses to one’s life or the dilemmas of others, pouring out concern or smothering care. Instead, I approach this awakening as a deeply invigorating self-awakening in order to stir up, first of all, a little tenderness for the self.

The idea and the process I offer today is this:

1. Offer the self a means of connection to heart-centered feelings of tenderness, drawing out the maternal feminine that resides inside all human beings, female and male.

2. Understand what tenderness feels like inside your own physical self. Does it cause pain? Is it largely blocked and difficult to access? Is your child self holding it firmly gripped, afraid to let you, the adult, touch it for fear that it may mean annihilation? You must know that often the child self holds the emotions that once were so important but had to be kept hidden and safe. Ask your child self, in such a case, to allow you a small taste of this most precious feeling.

4. Feel your heart’s warm expansiveness as you stir up the energy of the reality of this quality of tenderness inside you.

5. Do not lose sight of the fact that this feeling does indeed reside inside you even though it may be hidden behind rusty doors of old, left locked for good reason, though now it is time to unlock these true feelings.

6. Understand that this is not a selfish act or practice. Keep in mind the goal, which is to awaken a sense of longing that lies inside each one of you to feel love, to feel love of self first and foremost.

7. Only in facing the self with this tenderness will your intent be pure. No matter what you attempt to accomplish in life the most important step is connection to inner self. So use this heart-centered awakening of tenderness as a tool to begin a new process of learning to love the self with the intent for it to blossom into the world around you.

8. Notice, as you take on this practice of awakening tenderness of the self within the self, that other emotions may arise. Use the tenderness to melt them, staying aware that this heart-centered awakening is the most important focus at this moment. Without judgment or consternation accept the pain that may arise as but a quiet voice inside, letting you know that deep within your inner shadows are but tender feelings.

9. To begin this awakening is enough, a little at a time. In meditation or in brief periods of heart-centered breathing begin to open your heart to the needs of the self. Only in doing so will you achieve the most meaningful of gifts you can give the self: love of others, unconditionally, without attachment, simply because it is the deepest purpose of being human.

10. Find the self vulnerable to this stirring up and know that all human beings are equally vulnerable, that all have a heart center and the capacity to hold within that heart tenderness for the self and others.

11. This practice does not require any more action than allowing the self to feel. In awakening heart-centered feelings within the self one awakens heart-centered feelings in all. This is the intent of most importance, for now is the time of necessity for all mankind to carve a new direction.

12. If one is intent on learning compassion and the means of living a compassionate life the first step must be learning the tenderness of compassion for the self. It involves unbiased awakening of all that you each hold within. With heart-centered opening of all the doors to the self, offering the self the compassion you wish to offer others, your journey in that world will truly begin to expand.

Do not forget that one cannot truly embrace another until one has fully embraced the self. I stress this for I know there are many upon that earth eager to do good, to help others, and to succeed at inner growth for the betterment of the world. All of these goals are most worthy but will fall short if the inner self is not allowed to experience that which the outer self professes as so necessary.

Change the self too, even as you seek to change the world. One will not happen without first the other. The inner awakening supercedes all other awakenings.

Remain connected to heart-centered intent through all your days. Invite the energy of this intent into your physical body, for that is where it will have most effect. By your personal practice of this intent your every action will likewise be involved with it, naturally and tenderly. For in embodying heart-centered intent you become one with it, and this is most appropriate, necessary, and desirable, at this moment and all moments to come.

Thank you, Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.